


It Makes Me Warm

by DarthSuki



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Archer!Reader, Archers' Guild, Developing Relationship, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Kissing, M/M, Relationship Discussions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-27 05:41:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19784395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarthSuki/pseuds/DarthSuki
Summary: There is ongoing troubles with the Archers' Guild and you are paired with Silvairre to figure out who is behind it. This would not be so much of an issue if the man hadn't confessed romantic feelings towards you but a week ago and hasn't said a word to you since.





	It Makes Me Warm

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for a request made on my FFXIV writing blog. If you would like to submit a request or check out my other related work, [go check it out here!](https://finalfantasyxivwritings.tumblr.com/)

You can feel the wind. You can feel the brush of the leaves. You can feel the dull whisper of sleep against the back of your eyes. You can feel it all and thensome, sensations layered overtop of one another in some vague culmination of serenity beneath the light of the full moon but barely hidden beyond the canopy of the forest. It’s like a cloak around your shoulders, settling upon you with a weight of such familiarity that even the mild annoyances are but a comfort of their own.

Your eyes have been watching the same section of the forest for hours. Though you’ve once thought yourself an expert in the twists and turns of the Gridanian homeland, it wasn’t until tonight that you came to realize the smallest details what would have otherwise slipped your purview.

The delicate colors of the fresh-bloomed wildflowers as they sit beneath the moonlight. The soft noises of evening echoing through the air, of birds and insects in a rich yet delicate cacophony of life. The feeling of freedom and exhilaration in simply catching glimpses of the full moon’s glow far above your head.

Though you have called Gridania home and the Archers’ guild your family for a fair number of years, there’s but a thin feeling of wonder in realizing there’s still something about the grand forests that you’re yet to experience. It brings questions to your mind about what else there is that you’ve yet to see, to smell, to touch with your own hands. But such a thought has worth in another time and place, when you are not otherwise occupied with a task far more important than idle wonder and fanciful musings.

No, you cannot afford to let your mind wander off for very long. Despite the fact that you’ve been sitting up within the branches of a tree for the last several hours on watch, there is still a heavy importance that hangs in the air. You can still hear it yet from the echoes in your thoughts, of Guildmaster Luciane’s voice.

* * *

The first indication that something was wrong came not in that Luciane called the entire Archers’ Guild to a meeting, but that she only summoned a fair few: among them you, Leih and Silvairre who seemed to be the most concerned by what she had to say, as the three of you had been intensely privy into the current ongoings of the Shroud where others had been given but delicate details.

“It is no secret that our forest is always at-odds with those who would do it harm,” the Elezen woman said, great care in the tone of her voice. Her eyes glimmered with wariness. “…But we reason to believe one of our own is leaking information to a particular subset of poachers, whom we know only of their name and number.”

A cold silence swept through the room. 

You couldn’t help but exchange a glance towards your friends standing yet beside you, though it was only Leih whom met your eyes with confusion of her own–Silvairre, on the other hand, merely kept his gaze forward and arms crossed. Even if you could not see his eyes you could still see the tension in his jaw, muscles tight and his stance stiff. 

Luciane continued to speak, looking out over the small crowd of people before her, but holding no greater look than simple caution upon her face.

“Though it is not yet certain, this betrayal of loyalty may have been the reason behind the recent disappearance of several of our members. I understand that many of you have expressed a feeling of discontent at this,” The guildmaster’s eyes shift directly towards Silvairre. He but meets her look, his body and jaw still as tense as coiled steel. “…We are doing all that we can to find out who is behind these acts. I implore you not only as your guildmaster, but as a member of your family within the Archers’ Guild-”

She takes a breath, letting the words settle firm upon the crowd, the air, until everything feels almost suffocating in its simple intensity.

And then, Luciane sighs; it’s an honest sound, one but barely hiding away the sleepless nights and long days of work you know she’s been pulling out of sight of many of the guild’s members.

“…Please, if anyone knows but anything, pray bring it to me or the ranking members of the Twin Adders. I yearn not for revenge more than I do for peace–a lesson I hope many can share with me, lest we lose all we’ve grown to hold dear for both Gridania and the Shroud both.

When it was obvious that her call to attention was over, most of the crowd filtered out of the room. There were but three who remained, and Luciane seemed relieved when she could finally take in the sight of you, Silvairre and Leih without the pressure of others waiting for her words.

She approached you three with a tired smile on her lips, and it was only in that closeness that you could see how the recent weeks had been plaguing her. The spots beneath her eyes look dark with exhaustion, and even the quirk of her lips seem to tax her greatly. The fact that she was so willing to speak of the ongoing issue after coming up with but nothing in her own investigations–ones to only a small sum knew of–only confirmed the seriousness of the situation.

“I am sorry to have called the three of you so abruptly,” Luciane says, trying to make her words seem casual and lighthearted. “I know you had requested time away from the guild for the next sun, but I understand that you would have wanted this information to come from me instead of a new recruit.”

Leih is the first to speak of the three of you. Her words are sudden, just shy of interrupting the guildmaster, but she speaks with the fervent honesty you’ve come to know of her.

“Don’t apologize for something like that!”

She takes a step forward, her ears pricking up and tail almost lashing out behind her.

“You said it yourself Luciane, this guild is like our family–if someone’s going to hurt it, then I’ll make sure to give ‘em a hard-”

Silvairre finally moves, stretching an arm out in front of the Keeper and silencing whatever words she’d yet to say. She looks at him in annoyance for a moment, but the man offers her not a word. Leih eventually huffs and crosses her arms, sparring you a glance that balances precariously between worry and nervousness.

Of the three of you, Silvairre is the hardest taken with the ongoing threat–beyond Luciane herself, of course. 

The man settles his eyes upon the guildmaster; there's firmness in the look, something hardened by time and worry beyond what little he’s expressed to you and Leih in his most vulnerable moments.

“You’ve called us here for more than simply to hear information we know much about,” Silvairre says lowly. “If there is a task for us to take upon, we would hear it without hesitation.”

Luciane meets the man’s gaze with equal firmness.

Then it drops.

“…I cannot find even a trail of who may be the culprit of recent information leaks.”

Her words are heavy with a sense of guilt. Even when Leih seems ready to jump to assure the woman otherwise, Silvairre stops her with a soft, but pointed look.

Lucian continues, “It’s obvious that whomever it is responsible for this has done well to keep their tracks hidden from eyes high in the guild. No matter where I look or who I ask, I find that any trace of lead or hint has been long erased, as if they could sense my coming malms away.”

You can’t help but blink, mind already following where the woman’s words were leading to.

“So you want us to take on the investigation?”

All three pairs of eyes suddenly turn to you. Though you shrink a little under the combined gaze, it doesn’t deter you from continuing your thoughts.

“If whoever it is is expecting someone like the guildmaster to be the only one looking for them, then they surely will not be guarded against other members–if anything, their constant escape might have made them more brazen, in turn allowing us a chance to catch them completely unawares.”

After a breath of time, Luciane’s smile curls ever wider. Her soft eyes seem to glimmer with a touch more mirth than before, an honest amusement breaking through the haze of her ample exhaustion.

“The three of you are some of the ones I trust most,” she murmurs softly. “I would want no others working for the guild’s best interest in this difficult time.”

Her words have weight. They press over your shoulders as the realization settles upon you, the knowledge that you have not only the woman’s trust, but also her assurance that you, Leih and Silvairre can do what she herself could not. Despite her great many years within the guild, she looks to you and the two standing beside you to be the ones to find the culprit of this challenging mess of secrecy and betrayal.

But what can you do but nod? What can you do but look at Luciane and smile, to assure her that you will do your very best?

Because you do, and in turn so does Leih and Silvairre both. The three of you share a glance between one another, speaking with eyes instead of words and in mutual agreement for the task set forth and goals expected.

You will not fail.

* * *

Your eyes linger on the sight of the moon, its light scattered between the leaves in the canopy far above your head. The night is peaceful, the world as if asleep, but Luciane’s words yet weigh heavily over your shoulders. Perhaps when the task is done, when the guild yet again without threat, then maybe then you can seek out more of what the forest has to offer you in it’s never-ending chest of secrets.

But it’s not you that you’re worried about most. Where you have found comfort in the abilities of the guild members around you, in Luciane’s trust and assurance, it is Silvairre who has instead sought silence.

Though the two of you had been watching the trails of the South Shroud for every evening in the past several nights, he’s scarcely said more than a few words to you. At best, the man may offer you a word to bring something to your attention, though it has most often yielded but the sight of an errant antelope doe. The repeated sight is not inherently something to worry about, but it reveals something just as troubling as what would seeing a member of the poaching group itself.

It’s not a worry that you can keep idly to yourself anymore.

You gently shift yourself over the branch, hoping to inch closer to the Elezen without causing too much noise.

“Hey, Silvairre?” the words fall as a whisper from your lips.

The man doesn’t say anything.

Thinking he may have not heard you (which is rather unlikely, given the sensitivity of Elezen ears), you shift even closer, until your shoulders are almost touching, and you can see the profile of his face with clarity even in the dark shadows of the moonlight forest, his eyes drawn and holding onto the dirt trails below.

“…Silvairre?”

“It would be wise for us to keep quiet,” he but says in response, his eyes unmoving from where they lay.

Your brows furrow with a tinge of annoyance, a mixture of worry and anger starting to swirl around in your thoughts. It would be one thing if the man’s cold silence is just a one-off thing, if he was but temporarily shut-off of his thoughts and emotions to you, when but a week prior he had been dancing around you with feelings you’ve yet to put a label on.

Romantic feelings, at the very least.

It feels like it was as quick as a strike of lightning; from the day that Silvairre had but confessed a level of fondness for you to the first evening of your efforts for Luciane’s task, the man had seemed to flip entirely over, acting as if you were little more than a stranger to him–you’re not sure if it makes you feel more sad or angry, though the lack of communication at all certainly offers little help.

Your jaw feels tight as you clench your teeth, thoughts rolling so quickly through your mind in a moment of impulse that you can’t help to stop them as they leave your mouth.

“It would be  _ wise _ do do a lot of things, Silvairre,” you can’t help but tilt your head and lean your body forward, trying to get even the slightest hint of the man’s attention on anything but the damned ground many dozen fulms beneath the two of you. “Like, I don’t know, maybe  _ talking _ to me? I’d sure love a little more than a half-dozen words in the span of three suns.”

“This is not the time for that sort of conversation-”

“Then what IS the time?”

Your whisper has raised into a low hiss, your face starting to feel warm with emotions repressed so delicately for the past week that it’s a battle not to let them all come storming out–a scream is constantly restrained behind your lips.

“How in the world am I supposed to know when to talk to you anymore? Luciane put us together for this task but you’ve barely said a thing to me–even before, we only barely had a chance to sit down with one another-”

“I think you’re overreacting to-”

“Oh, am I? Am I  _ really _ ?” 

The sound of your voice grows by a hair, and still Silvairre doesn’t look at you.

“Why aren’t you talking to me? Why haven’t we done anything at all I–” you try not to let your words start to break, but the constant, hard whispering is wrecking painfully over your throat. Your tone lifts instead to but a low, strained murmur. “What in the world am I supposed to think when the last time you said anything worthwhile was that you’re  _ fond _ of me, and then to just ...act as if it never happened?”

Your jaw starts to hurt.

“Why are you avoiding me, Silvairre?”

The man doesn’t say anything, though you were almost ready for him to try and silence the words. You were ready for him to reach a hand out and cover your mouth or something of that nature, and so angry were you already for the readiness that, when he finally turns his face to look at you–

And at last, he sighs.

“…because I’m scared.”

You fall silent.

His eyes don’t quite meet yours. Instead, they drift somewhere between the two of you, at the space between your bodies. Unsure.

After a few moments, your words find a voice again, though rife with unhidden confusion.

“Why...are you scared?” Brows furrow and, for a moment, you can feel a gentle twist of your heart. “...Is it because of something I did? Did I say something wrong?”

The Elezen presses his lips together and shakes his head.

“It’s nothing you’ve done, I promise you that. I just…”

He glances back to the forest floor, seeming to accept the fact that there’s little the two of you would come across tonight--but another evening of little to offer, though you’re at least grateful to hear the man speaking to you again. In the days since Silvairre had gently pulled you aside and alone to speak about his feelings towards you, you’d wondered if you had done something wrong--or if he had eventually decided he simply didn’t feel that way anymore, in the span of a week.

Once again there’s silence between you. The night air is chilled, the leaves gentle, and the sounds of evening creatures a comforting, muffled din somewhere in the background of it all.

Somewhere between one breath and the next, you feel the subtle but unmistakable warmth of a hand as it moves over your own. 

For a time, the two of you sit like that together, your hands joined and fingers slowly interlacing. You can feel the way the man starts to give, slowly, his body leaning equally against your own until there little more that exists than the two of you and the forest itself.

Beside you, Silvairre takes in a breath, slow yet audible.

“I’m...admittedly a little bit...fond of your company,” he says, briefly reaching up a hand so that the side of his curled index finger presses to his lips. He drops it and clears his throat, as if realizing himself, and at last glances to you. “Perhaps more than a little bit, if I am to be quite honest.”

You meet his eyes and offer him a gentle look, urging the man to continue--you’ve already spoken your piece well enough.

There’s a gentle hue of pink over the man’s cheeks, evident enough even in the night’s darkness.

“I...am scared of you getting hurt.”

“Hurt?”

“Everything that’s going on with the guild at present. Members getting hurt, guards getting ambushed...I wanted to focus all my attention on fixing it first before…”

He trails off after a few moments, allowing the words to settle back into the air between your bodies. His grip on your hand is firm, but not painful, a thumb gently rubs over your knuckles, as if mapping out each little bump and curve.

“...I did not want to spend so much time feeling a fool over my emotions that I fail my friends a second time. And you are...well. I would want you as more than a mere friend.”

You huff.

“There’s a better way of going about it without ignoring me completely, you know.”

Silvairre nods after a moment, offering not a word of argument. He at least seems soothed, his form less tense, though there’s yet the flush on his cheeks every time you spare a glance at the man’s face. The more that you look at it, the more you find yourself growing rather fond of the sight--the Elezen is handsome, yes, but in a way unique to himself. 

The way his brows furrow when he is hard in thought, or how his lips purse when dealing with an issue. 

The way his eyes almost glimmer in the moments of honest joy or, yet still, the gentle way his lips curl even behind his hand when he tries to convince you and Leih both he’s not amused by your jokes and pranks alike.

Silvairre is a horribly stubborn man, sometimes a tad smug in his own abilities, but it does not negate the feelings that blossom in your chest when you so much as catch sight of his face.

Slowly, you lean your head against the man’s shoulder.

“We don’t have to do anything more until after we figure this out, if that’s what you wanted from the start,” you say gently. “You just need to tell me what you want.”

You reach your free hand over, gently caressing your fingertips up and down what of Silvairre’s arm that you can reach. All it took is but a few simple words, a minute of communication, an assurance. For all of the idiocy and stubbornness you’re but too familiar with in the man sitting beside you, it is equally part of the reason for why you enjoy his company very much.

“If that is your honest desire, then there is...something that I do want.”

“And what might that be?”

Silvairre gently shifts against you. Your eyes turn in the same moment that his do, and at last your gazes meet--faces mere inches away from one another as you peer into the soft glimmer of silvery-blue depths settled upon your face.

You are so close that you can see the soft, barely-there speckles of color across the man’s cheeks and the bridge of his nose. You can feel the gentle warmth of his breath, and even catch how his eyes seem to linger not centered on your face itself, but down to your lips where they linger.

“...I would much like to kiss you right now,” he says at last, voice soft and almost unsure. “I’ve been...wanting to do that for a while, actually.”

You can’t help but feel a smile come over you.

“Only if you promise not to hide things from me anymore.”

After the span of only a few heartbeats, you see a look of equal gentleness fall over the man’s face. There is that soft smile, that gentle glimmer in his eyes, and still there is a soft flush blooming across his cheeks, so pretty on his skin that it almost makes your heart skip and your stomach flip.

“I promise you as much,” Silvairre murmurs at last, his face already leaning towards your own. “And I promise to protect you.”

You have nothing to say in response before his lips meet your own. Gentle and soft, the kiss is blissfully pure, bringing to mind how a young teenager might first explore their emotions with a crush. Awkward, careful and sweet. 

Silvairre’s free hand reaches to cup the side of your face, almost cradling your cheek against his palm.

Teeth gently nip at your bottom lip, coaxing your mouth open for but a hungrier, deeper kiss. You can’t help the gentle noise of pleasure that leaks from your throat--it only seems to embolden the man, and you yet feel him press his lips harder against your own. Greedy. Wanting.

Though the kiss itself doesn’t last for more than a few heated seconds, it’s done plenty to leave your heart racing and your stomach twisted into an entirely new shape. With bated breath the two of you finally part, faces leaning back only a few inches from one another, just far enough so that you can stare into each other's eyes and contemplate the emotion swirling hot between your gazes.

There is no hiding the soft quirk of Silvairre’s lips as he regards you.

Eventually, the two of you manage to return your senses back to the forest, of the task yet at-hand. It’s been many hours into the watch, with dawn soon to creep over the vague horizon past the thick thicket of the Shroud’s trees, and you doubt that you will see very much in the waning hours of the evening.

And yet you know, even without the exchange of a word, that you and Silvairre will remain, waiting until the first light of morning trickles through the great boughs of the trees above you. Until then, all you can do is enjoy the peace and serenity of the forest, to hope that the next night will bring you closer to solving the problem plaguing the guild.

The night is peaceful, and the air is still filled with the gentle din of evening creatures, but the air doesn’t feel nearly as chilled. 

Though nothing has changed in the breeze or the old that hangs around you, something about the pressure of Silvairre’s hand around yours, firm and protective-

-it makes you feel warm.


End file.
